Tag Archives: sisters

Crazy About Chickens

I now refer to my daughter as “that crazy chicken lady.” She’s got them perched on her shoulder. She’s pushing them around in her toy cart. She’s got them with her on the trampoline. Everywhere Taegan is, there’s a chicken. We caught her and a friend “teaching them how to fly” in “chick school” today. The premise being that if you throw them up in the air, they’ll flap their wings and figure it out. We quickly put a stop to that.

The pullets we got at the local feed store are growing great, but unfortunately, a coon got one of our Silver Laced Wyandottes. So, we’re down to 5 teenage chickens.

In other news, Taegan is now on a murderous rampage against raccoons. She was sad for a minute…and then it all turned to violence. Trust me, I’ve listened–against my will– to a few different death scenarios. Hell hath no fury like a chicken lady scorned. I thought I’d put that out there for any local raccoons that read this blog. Don’t come hunting at the Kriders.

Taegan and I have named the 5 we have left. I’ll introduce them in a future post. This post is for introducing our newest additions. Taegan’s class hatched 20+ chicks and you can be sure Taegan was all about adding to the family.

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Allow me to introduce you to Apple (left) and Pear (right). Disclaimer: I, in no way, had anything to do with those names. 🙂

And, really, we couldn’t say no when chicks bring her this much joy.

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Luxe likes the chicks…

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but from more of a distance.

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This is Taegan saying “Don’t hit it!” Luxe’s intention was not to hit it, rather to let it know that it better not even think about coming any closer.

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The next question becomes…What do you do when a chick doesn’t respect the boundaries you’re trying to create?

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Sister’s starting to freak out…

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aaaannndd we’re there. We’re freaked out. Apple is refusing to take no for an answer.

So, it’s safe to say Luxe does not share in Taegan’s passion for chickens. That’s ok. We’ll find her thing.

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Apple came over to see me instead. When I asked her (or him…we really don’t know yet) for thoughts on this new life with new people, Apple replied, “I’m just going to keep winging it. Life, chickenhood, my eyeliner…Everything.”

I’m kind of enjoying all of them. Chickens (I can’t believe I’m saying this) are pretty fun. And I’ll make sure I document on video the next time Taegan and the farmer try to catch our teenagers after they’ve been let out of the coop. I’ve not laughed that hard in a long time.

Barn Cleanin’ Day

Last week, I mentioned that my sister came down to the farm for barn cleaning day. I warned her ahead of time that this specific thing was what was on the schedule for that certain day and she said something to the effect of, “I’ll be there come rain or shine!” Apparently, she was kinda’ excited about it.

This particular day is one in which we scrub the milk parlor of the milk barn from top to bottom. In order to get the barn clean, we have to get really dirty. It’s part of the exchange.

Exhibit A:

You end up covered in manure from head to toe. It just comes with the job and Bailey and I took this job very seriously.

This is a job I don’t necessarily hate doing around the farm because 1) I’m good at cleaning  2) you can see where you’ve made progress and  3) sometimes I enjoy getting incredibly filthy. Sometimes.  The disheartening part is that the milk cows couldn’t really care less how clean the barn is. I think they conspire to totally trash it every time they come in it. This is why we try our best to get them in and out of there as quick as we can.

The farmer says this is the job we need to save for the people we don’t especially want to come back and visit us.

But, my silly sister quite enjoyed herself! She likes the farmin’ life. And let me tell ya, she’s a worker bee. I was glad she came, so we could use and abuse her. The farmer bought her a mocha frappucino down at the country store for her time.

My shirt was pure coincidence, but how fitting! (I went to Kickapoo High School if you’re wondering why in the world I would have a shirt like that in my possession.) This picture was taken when we were midway through the cleaning process and in no way illustrates the degree of filth we were covered in by the time we were done. Bailey didn’t bring an extra change of clothes, so I had to strap her to the top of the car on the way home. She told me it was exhilarating.

This isn’t all we did that day, so stay tuned for more pictures of the dairy barn and Bailey helping the farmer milk!

I now know how truly refreshing a shower can be,

The Dairymaid